James Tanner: On How the NHL Tracks Its Standings....Game Preview..Jagr's Great-Grandson? An essay on the ridiculous way the NHL tracks its standings and a game preview.

Back to back home games suck for the home fans and leads to a decrease in ticket sales.... People are either too ust to go both nights in a row, or they pick the best game and attend that

4 on 4 is a real game situation, happens all the time, make it 4 on 4 for 10 minutes and remove the loser point

Make Shootout wins some sort of standings tie breaker but do not award a point for winning in the shootout - ie: If a game goes to the shootout, each team only gets 1 point

You should have recalculated the standings for your article and removed loser points, shootout wins and losses, and converted them to single point ties to compare what the standings would look like

(frank) the police

Back to back home games suck for the home fans and leads to a decrease in ticket sales.... People are either too ust to go both nights in a row, or they pick the best game and attend that

4 on 4 is a real game situation, happens all the time, make it 4 on 4 for 10 minutes and remove the loser point

Make Shootout wins some sort of standings tie breaker but do not award a point for winning in the shootout - ie: If a game goes to the shootout, each team only gets 1 point

You should have recalculated the standings for your article and removed loser points, shootout wins and losses, and converted them to single point ties to compare what the standings would look like
- TheGame316

I highly doubt, in fact I would go so far as to guarantee, that there would be no appreciable attendance difference if teams played the same team back-to-back at home.

Awarding no points to the winner of a shootout only makes things more confusing, not less, in my opinion.

And of course 4 on 4 is a real game situation. So is 5-3, so are pulled goalies etc. There's no logic in arguing that just b/c its a game situation that it is good to have 4-4 OT. There are of course some good reasons to have 4-4 OT, but what I am saying in my article is that points are being awarded for a totally different game style and thus making the standings unrepresentitive of who is the best actual team. Further more, the entire reason of going 4 on 4 in the first place was to increase scoring and decrease ties. The shootout ruins this logic and now the only reason to keep it is because its entertaining, a factor that I think should be less important than having the standings accurately reflect reality.

As for adding up all the standings, that is just way, way too time consuming. Though I bet a google search would show that someone already has.

Thanks a lot for reading and the feedback. Much appreciated.

Hi Mr.Tanner...

I have this wheel here....

...please be the 405683th person to try to re-invent it.

Team A has 4win 3 loss record against team B so wins season series with 8 pts
But ...
Team B's record is 3 wins 1 loss 3 OT losses for 9 points. Team B actually wins the season series. WTF

I don't understand why it cant just be wins and losses. Please forgive me for what Im about to say but I think the NBA has this one right. Just have a winner and a loser. No points. Standings are based off of who has the most W's. Make it a 10min OT. If you wanna incorporate 5 min of 3 on 3 that's good with me. I think it would be fun. Then you have the shootout. I know a lot of people hate it but it's the most reasonable way to wrap up a tied game. It's either that or ties, pick your poison. I think that with a 5 min 4v4 and 5 min 3v3 and the knowledge that there's no loser point more games would end in OT as opposed to the SO. It would be much easier to keep track of the standings and you wouldn't have the Florida Panthers make the playoffs based on their ability to lose in overtime

Agreed, the 'loser' point should go away. Games have a winner and a loser, games shouldn't have a winner and a quality loss.

Frankly, I'd get rid of the shootout, but I know fans like it, it just doesn't make sense, I do like the 3 on 3, that would be fun to watch.

The Yotes should actually be good 3 on 3 with Boeds, Vermette and OEL and then follow that up with Ribs, Doan and Yandle

Having OEL and Yandle back there for the single Dman should be huge 3 on 3.

Water is wet.

never understood how the NHL thought standings would work by giving out 3pts in a game only worth 2. makes 0 sense.

without shootout - 2 pt game:
- winner in reg or OT gets 2 pts
-loser gets 0 pts, period.
-tied after 5 or 10 min OT - 1pt each
(and I don't think they should anything less than 4 on 4)

with shootout - 3 pt game:
- winner in reg or OT - 3pts
-loser in reg or OT gets 0pts
-if goes to SO, winner gets 2pts and loser gets 1pt (so split the points like a tie but the winner in the gimmick gets the extra point)

I dont understand how you argue their shouldnt be a loser point, yet you single out a team that has picked up the 2nd most loser points in the league and declare them the better team than the leafs who are above them

The Leafs have won 25 and lost 25 by the old standards

The wings have won 21 and lost 27

so yeah, I think the leafs are better. Actually I expected a lot more from the wings considering they havent missed the playoffs in nearly two decades, but I wouldnt be surprised to see them fail this year

Why cant the NHL just award 3 points for a regulation win, and then 2 for an OT or Shoot Out win, 1 for OT/Shoot Out Loss? at least that values all games the same...

What is wrong with the Shoot out? Everyone loved it right after the first lock out, now all the know-it all blowhards who think they are some much more intelligent than all other hockey fans continue to whine about how stupid it is. Take the case of Detroit.... Detroit is constantly whining about how bad the shoot out is...I never heard them complain before this year, when they amazingly lost 9 straight shoot outs... Yet somehow their opinion is objective and intelligent.

In a league that continually tries to hide and sweep skill under the carpet by constantly allowing hooking, holding, and interference in its games, we should be embracing the display of skill show in the shoot out and in 4 on 4 play instead of trying to find ways to run back to the same old boring 5-5 hockey that brought us to the 1-1 tie in the first place!